Reinventing a Classic, Marmoset’s Original Music Team Goes Metal

What do Rick Astley, Britney Spears, The B-52’s and Johnny Cash have in common? They’ve all been masterfully parodied and recreated by Marmoset’s in-house composers, Greg Jong and Graham Barton.

Throughout the winter season many of us find a warm familiarity in classics like Dean Martin’s “Let It Snow” or the baritone of Bing Crosby’s vocals. It’s all very soothing, traditional and well, nice.

Getting into the holiday spirit, Marmoset’s Original Music Team took on the challenge of reinventing a classic for kicks; a song to evoke an energetic physical reaction that can best be defined as raging out — to compliment and balance the softer side of the holidays, of course. A musical creation that would be something for everyone, from caroler devotees to metal enthusiasts.

Using a very basic template structure, the Original Music Team brought to life six song variations, all wildly different yet recognizable in their individual style. After a few intense studio hours, the team created genre-spanning versions of the old favorite “Deck the Halls”— it included channeling folk rock legend Johnny Cash and pop sensation Britney Spears. The ultimate final version entailed a mashup with a traditional choir structure intercutting with themes of metal.

Spearheaded by Marmoset’s in-house Original Music Team, the song illustrates how something can be deconstructed and then musically reinvented to be drastically different — all while following the exact same chordal structure and tempo.

Leading up to the new year we’ll be releasing each entertaining variation on Instagram (stay tuned). In the meantime, please enjoy our Original Music Team’s metal version — we recommend peeking at the before template to get the gist of just what they were working with before composing the metal version. Enjoy and happy holidays!